The business side of photography
Customers say the darndest things:
None of the photographers we hired last year knew what we wanted.
None of the other photographers knew how to take pictures we like.
We’ve had such a hard time finding a photographer who knows the right price.
I know this is what we asked for but it isn’t what we want.
If our budget changes, we may not be able to pay you.
We need a portrait of our CEO done this afternoon and we’re willing to pay $75.
Some photographers charge more, other photographers charge less, and some photographers undercharge and effectively work for nothing. But I’ve never heard of a photographer who overcharges or gouges customers.
A fellow corporate photographer recently wondered what he should tell potential clients who point out that another photographer charges much less than he does. Perhaps this might help:
Photographers are not economic magicians. When a photographer charges less, it means the customer is getting less. There’s no way around it. Maybe it’s less quality, maybe less service, maybe less experience. But it’s always less. The customer has to decide if they’re willing to settle for less.
If the pictures are not important then it might be okay to take a chance with low-priced photography. But smart companies know to always avoid risk because cheap can sometimes be too expensive.
My photography business doesn’t settle for less, (which is why I buy only premium cameras, lenses, computers, software, etc.), and I refuse to offer less because my customers are important.
I want my customers to succeed in their business marketing and I want my pictures to play a part in that success. I don’t cut corners and give customers less because that would only undermine their business goals.
This is a ridiculously long rant about this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. If you don’t cover the film festival or are not involved with it, then save yourself some time and skip this post.
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The 38th annual Toronto Film Festival recently ended. It’s the one event that all Toronto news photographers look forward to covering. Yes that was sarcasm.
Being the 38th edition, one might guess that the organizers might be, uh, organized and know what they’re doing. Sadly that guess would be wrong.
What do photographers need to do their job? They need to know who, what, where and when. Guess what information wasn’t given out?
Upon check-in, each photographer was given a bag of stuff, all of which was rather useless except for a pizza coupon :-). The bag contained no information that a news photographer needed.
Sigh.
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I’ve noticed that many professional photographers have abandoned their blogs in favour of using Twitter. While Twitter may be more fun, more immediate, and faster and easier to do, it makes little business sense for a commercial or corporate photographer.
There’s nothing wrong with using Twitter for personal activities or in conjunction with a blog. But it doesn’t seem to benefit a professional photographer enough to warrant leaving their blog behind.
A photographer’s blog has several advantages over Twitter. A blog (hopefully) has more thought invested, is better indexed by search engines, holds long lasting value, is a deeper source of information, and is much better at building trust and credibility.
When a company is deciding on which photographer to hire, are they’re influenced more by a blog post or a bunch of tweets?
Which better enhances a photographer’s reputation, a blog post or a few tweets?
For a professional photographer, the marketing value of a blog is huge compared to Twitter. A blog has the capability for search engine optimization. A blog can be worth many thousands of dollars per month to a commercial photographer.
Although having said all that, as more photographers abandon blogging, the better it gets for those who stay with it.
When marketing their business, many photographers will talk about their camera equipment. On their web site, some photographers list the makes and models of all their gear. Some even display pictures of their camera equipment. Why?
When shopping for a contractor to renovate your kitchen, do you care what brand of tools they own? When your car needs servicing, do you ask the mechanic what brand of tools they use? At a restaurant, do you check what brand of kitchen appliances they have?
Customers don’t care about the brand of camera equipment that a photographer uses. They do not care nor should they.
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Many professional photographers do business headshots. A quick web search shows:
• One Toronto photographer charges $29 for business headshots. One wonders why he even bothers to charge anything at all. In the end, $29 is the same as $0 to his business.
• Another Toronto photographer, who claims 18 years in the business, charges $60 for headshots – cash only, please. Many of the sample photos on his site were stolen from other photographers. Using Google, it’s easy to trace the pictures back to the original sites. In this case, buyer beware.
• A Toronto-area photographer, charges $1,000 for “unlimited” business headshots. The fine print says that, for $1,000, he will come to your office and shoot as many portraits as you want in three hours.
This guy claims that he once did 84 headshots in three hours. He goes on to brag on his web site: “that’s one headshot every two minutes!” If you do the math, that’s about $12 per portrait.
Earlier today, I received an offer to photograph a sports event next month. A US photography company is seeking a few photographers to cover an all-day athletic event. The photographers just take pictures and no editing is required. Does this sound like a good assignment?
The job pays $225.
Does this still sound like a good assignment?
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